Column: The Big Ten and Tony Petitti officially lost the plot with a '4-4-2-2-1' Playoff model
Cassie goes 1-on-1 with Illini football's Bret Bielema
The Illini are coming off a 10-win season. Cassie Carlson went one-on-one with head coach Bret Bielema about the upcoming season.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti was singing all the right words in his address at Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas.
I’m not sure anyone could see the disappointing turn coming.
It started off so well when he talking about the College Football Playoff, too.
"There are plenty of teams in professional sports who qualify for the playoffs who can’t get past the first-round game," Pettiti said. "That’s OK, they still get to play."
Sure. I agree. I see where you’re going with this.
"We’ll figure it out on the field, rather than sitting in a room," Petitti said.
Oh yeah. Wholeheartedly agree there, boss. Keep going.
"If you’re 6-3 in the Big Ten, I would argue that’s a great record, and if you stumbled in a non-conference game, I don’t know why that disqualifies you," Petitti said. "8-4 as a winning percentage, if you project that winning percentage in every other sport, I’m pretty sure you make the postseason."
… What?
Now you’ve lost me.
Getting a Big Ten that finishes 6-3 in conference play into the Playoff is not pitting the 16th-best team against each other for a shot at a national title. Pettiti’s "4-4-2-2-1" concept is a greedy one, at best, for a conference that does not need to be greedy.
The ideas for expansion have flown the coop, jumped the tracks and completely lost the plot of why the College Football Playoff usurped the BCS system to begin with.
Remember the 2007 Fiesta Bowl Champion Boise State Broncos? The guys that finished 13-0, beat Oklahoma on the Statue of Liberty play and supercharged the argument for some form of playoff in college football? This slaps them in the face.
College football does not look like the way it did in 2007, but why should anyone in the Big Ten be advocating for a team with a 6-3 conference record – which can be a 9-3 record at its best or a 6-6 record at its worst – for a playoff system, when the current model benefit the Big Ten more than any other conference last year?
What we know:
Right now, three of the four major conference commissioners have gotten behind the CFP expansion idea of 5+X. Basically, five automatic qualifiers plus a set number of at-large teams. The SEC’s Greg Sankey, the ACC’s Jim Phillips and the Big 12’s Brett Yormark have been open about this at the respective media days.
"Five-11 is fair," Yormark said in his opening address at Big 12 media days on July 8. "We want to earn it on the field."
"It might not be the best solution today for the Big 12," Yormark added, "but long-term, knowing the progress we're making, the investments we're making, it's the right format for us. And I'm doubling down today on 5+11."
On Tuesday, Petitti made public his preferred model: the 4+4+2+2+1. That’s four automatic qualifiers for the Big Ten and SEC, two automatic qualifiers for the ACC and Big 12, and just one automatic qualifier for the top-ranked Group of 5 champion.
It doesn’t stop there.
Petitti’s vision also includes the concept of conference play-in games. Yes, really.
The grand illusion means a conference championship weekend that consists of a game to decide the Big Ten Championship. It also includes games 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5 to determine which teams get the Big Ten’s automatic CFP bids.
Petitti said Tuesday "fans will gravitate to it." I also gravitate towards being painfully uninterested.
The only people gravitating towards Indiana vs. Iowa, the No. 3 and No. 6 finishers in the Big Ten last year, are the people who live in Indiana and Iowa. Especially when the main event is Penn State vs. Oregon.
The most egregious idea is that an 8-4 Iowa team would have a shot to make the CFP. Iowa State finished the season No. 16 in the CFP rankings at 9-3. The Cyclones also beat Iowa in the regular season. Telling Iowa State that an 8-4 Iowa team makes it to the CFP because the Hawkeyes are in the Big Ten would not only enrage the entire city of Ames, but also devalue the CFP as a whole.
It took Notre Dame football 12 years for another national title shot. The next wait won't be that long
The Irish won't have to wait 12 years until their next shot at a national title. But, they'll need to close the final gap when it comes around. This season showed they can close that gap.
Big picture view:
The Big Ten lost the plot with its 4+4+2+2+1 model. How is it that the conference which just had four teams in the College Football Playoff, including the national champion, can be this greedy? It would make sense if Phillips or Yormark vied for this idea; those two had three teams combined make last year’s playoff.
Any sense that ensuring the Big Ten and SEC get more while others get painfully less ensures the third and fourth automatic qualifiers are nothing more than participation trophies, rather than stories like Indiana, which deserve to be celebrated.
Ah, the 2024 Hoosiers. A program without much football excellence defying the odds to make the first-ever 12-team playoff?
That’s a story with a plot I loved reading last year.
The sixth-best Big Ten team winning a chance to play the No. 1 overall team? I’m good. Keep the participation trophies at home.
How in the world does that better this sport?